In recent years, a display device that performs reflective display (hereinafter referred to as “reflective display device”) is used for an electronic book reader and the like. Here, the reflective display is a display method in which an external light is reflected to display an image, and examples thereof include a display method using a cholesteric liquid crystal, a display method using an electrowetting, an electrophoretic display system of microcapsules, and a display system of an electronic liquid powder.
Compared with a transmissive liquid crystal display device having a backlight and a self-luminous display device such as an EL (Electro Luminescence) display, the reflective display device has the feature of having low power consumption because it does not have a backlight. Also, while clear images can be visually recognized under strong external light such as sunlight, there is a characteristic that it is hard to obtain sufficient brightness under a limited external light such as indoors, and visibility deteriorates.
In the reflective display device, it is common to provide a diffusion layer (diffusion film) on the display screen, for example, in order to reduce the metallic luster of the reflective member that reflects external light.
Further, there is known a reflective display device aiming at obtaining sufficient brightness by diffusing reflected light which is light reflected from external light in a limited direction by using an anisotropic scattering layer (For example, Patent Literature 1).
When a user (observer) using the reflective display device views the screen with a reflective display device, for example, a tablet terminal or the like, the user (observer) views the tablet terminal in a manner that the user (observer) and the tablet terminal or the like face each other according to the user (observer) posture. In this case, it is desirable to make the brightness in the front direction of the screen sufficient. Therefore, in the prior art, by using an anisotropic scattering layer for the reflective display device, light in the regular reflection direction is widely diffused to increase the brightness in the front direction of the screen.